


King In Your Story

by foxxandbeanz



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:28:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21994492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxxandbeanz/pseuds/foxxandbeanz
Summary: Gendry has been hiding in plain sight for three years. Smithing. Biding his time. Alone. Someone is about to find him and set him on a new path to familiar faces.or Gendry finds out Arya is alive and they start a new journey together which will wind it's way differently from the end of season 6 and beyond.AU after 6x06.
Relationships: Arya Stark/Gendry Waters
Comments: 107
Kudos: 216





	1. Chapter 1: I Will Know By Morning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elleisforlovee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elleisforlovee/gifts).



> A gift for my beautiful tropical fish, my island-mate, the bitch to my please. (And if she doesn't like it, too bad. Nonreturnable just like my Christmas gifts)

KING IN YOUR STORY

Chapter One: I Will Know By Morning

A/N: Taking place in show canon shortly before 6x07 - ie before Arya gets stabbed by The Waif and while The High Sparrow's legion is beginning to take over King's Landing. AU from there. 

Chapter one title from Patrick Davy and the Ghosts "Linden Tree".

The clang of hammer on metal could drown out anything. A fact Clovis Rivers was thankful of every day. Each swing of his mallet ate away at the sounds of the city. The cries of the starving children in the alley behind his stall. The blows delivered by gold covered fists upon the rebellious peasants up the street. The noxious droning of the High Sparrow’s disciples from their platforms now on every corner. All quieted by the song of steel in the only sept Clovis recognized: his forge. And his devotion was nothing short of religious. The embers of his fire never seemed to die. He rose with the sun, his hammer never laid to rest before it sank beneath the horizon again. No job was turned down. No prejudice exercised. With every strike came the promise of exhaustion. That Clovis Rivers might smith until his lungs were filled with smoke, his hands coated in soot, and his arms so fatigued it might be a mercy if he chopped them off with the very swords they made. And then that he might fall onto his cot at night without the energy to even think. With each spark came the hope that he could drown out the truth and chase away the fear. That he wasn’t Clovis Rivers at all. That he might be found out.

He could pretend to be a bastard from just beyond Harrenhal, run South when the castle fell. He could change his name and cut his hair and hope that he was no longer recognizable as the boy that left King’s Landing several years before. He could speak less freely and smile more easily. He could stop himself picking fights. He could change the finish of his blades even if he couldn’t change the way he swung the hammer. No, in the swing of the hammer he was entirely Gendry Waters, always. And what the clamor of his craft didn’t chase away came in waking memories, flashes, when he least expected them. Things he never took notice of – before.

Rats clawing at each other over scraps in the gutter left him shaking and shrinking. A glimpse of a tall red head caused a cold shameful sweat. And the sight of a small girl taunting and outrunning a group of boys in the street ripped his heart from his chest. Each brought with them to Clovis’s mind memories he could never share because they weren’t his. Days when his arm was too weary to work into the night, found him at what passed for a tavern in Flea Bottom trying to numb Gendry’s louder remembrances. But the drink made them worse, made sleep harder to capture, and after, dreams too vivid. One or two trips to a pleasure house proved only that the pleasure was truly temporary and it wasn’t only a bed he wanted to share.

So he forged. Bending steel into swords and shields, nails and horseshoes, even spoons and forks, if it was the only job going, though the money was less. Then he plotted how to build flaws into gleaming goldplate. He trained himself at wielding a hammer for more than trade. He traced wobbly letters into the dirt floor by candlelight until he could draw them smooth, until his eyes burned to close. But he couldn’t sleep, not when he dreamed of blood-soaked rumors, so he sat awake. On watch as ever before, back propped against his cot, gaze lost in the dwindling fire until a pair of memorialized grey eyes were staring back.

Something was coming. It sounded stupid even to him. But he could feel it on the air, as the city churned on around him in a kind of desperation to- remain the same. It couldn’t. He knew that. He knew before long he’d have to fight, or flee, or maybe he’d be found out. He wouldn’t be taken prisoner this time. He’d be ready.

xxx

Three years. Three years the dreams remained the same. Harsh histories that were softened and warmed only to be marred again with hellish screams and rivers run red leaving only the option to wake or live it all again. And then they changed.

Where Gendry always stood, covered in blood, sweat, and ash, in the midst of a ruined castle surrounded by the dead and the dying on an endless night gave way without cause. He fell, suddenly fearless, through pitch blackness to find himself on his back on soft earth, tall green grass tickling at his neck and arms. Blue skies stretched above. And the smell of the sea and rain, much purer than he’d ever known, blew warm across his prone form.

The first night, the dream ended there just as he pushed himself up on his elbows to get a better look.

It came again, though not right away. A fortnight passed until calm replaced his nightmares once more. When he sat up and twisted round he could see it, the deep blue-green of an ocean that spanned far beyond his cliff position. But there was no sound as the waves crashed and broke upon the rocks, only the sight of fizzing white foam. Gendry didn’t hear anything at all. Not the water or the birds that flew above it. Not the horse he saw several paces away when he turned back toward land. Nor the figure than ran toward him seconds before he woke. A small girl with dark brown hair.

Now that it was what he wanted, sleep alluded Gendry for six nights completely. The result was a pair of daggers with intricate hilts that he admired only briefly before hiding them away. Without question, not the work of Clovis Rivers.

After that, the dream came every night without fail. First, the deafening roar of the ocean thrust him into wakefulness before he could go any further. That may have happened more than once. It was as real as the clang of his hammer during the day and he could feel the mist of the breaking waves on the wind. Try as he might, he could never return to the cliff again in the same night. When the seas no longer spooked him, it was the girl. She was so familiar at a distance that even in the dream Gendry had to remind himself to breath. It wouldn’t be until the fourth or fifth repetition that he realized her mouth was moving. That she was trying to speak to him. All he could see at first, through his pounding heart and tunneling vision, was that is wasn’t her. That’s when he woke with tears on his cheeks.

For days then, he fought the dream. Tried to wake, to stay on the battlefield he knew, to will something else into being. But the girl came bounding toward him every night. Long hair flew wild and untethered in the wind, obscuring her bright eyes most of the time. Her feet were bare and the hem of her well-made dress was spotted with mud. Gendry noticed these things in stages, never really able to take them all in at once. Night after night, she pointed and prodded pulling him to his feet, gesturing to the sea. Her little mouth moved without sound but he knew she was yelling. She was yelling at him and sometimes crying, hot, desperate tears that turned her pale cheeks red and made her blue eyes shine. 

It was when she shoved at his chest in anger that he thought there was something to recognize about her after all. But that thought was chased away as her small hands shoved again and he slipped over the edge of the cliff and back to the real world. His waking edged with what he thought might have been her cries.

Gendry found himself on the grassy cliffs without the preamble of death and violence the next night. Salt on the air, waves crashing with gusto, breeze teasing the grass across his bare arms as he sat up. Everything was sharper. The tunnel vision that always held him in place had receded and he squinted against the bright landscape. It was warm. He never noticed that before. There were yellow flowers in amongst the green and tan grasses. He didn’t have his own clothes on – these, newly sewn and soft to the touch, he’d never seen, never owned them or anything so fine. His own hands were unrecognizable as he raised them before his eyes, scrubbed completely clean, and defined by healed burns and cuts across lean fingers. He was turning them over again as the little girl came into sight.

He saw her wholly now too. Saw more than one thing he thought forever gone. Her steps were determined but she didn’t run at him this time. A tiny scowl set to her lips and brow, he knew he was certainly the cause of, nearly made him laugh. Her hands were in balled fists at her sides. She was definitely angry with him. But he also saw the tiny braids that struggled without success to keep her hair back from her face. And while she was small, barely a head above his waist and he couldn’t guess what age, her cheeks were round and full. She bore no resemblance to the skinny, half-starved orphans in King’s Landing. She belonged to someone. She was cared for. And this time, when she was close enough to touch, when she stared up at him with barely contained fury, the blue of her eyes made the breath catch in his throat.

He stumbled back a half step before crouching on his haunches to her height. She ate up the distance between them again as Gendry opened and closed his mouth without sound once. Then managed thickly, “Who are you?”

Her big eyes grew wider as her brow furrowed. “Clover,” she said like it like he should have already known. Her voice much smaller than her previous bravado suggested.

“Wh-”Gendry hadn’t fully decided on the question when the sun caught her belt and also his gaze. The hilt of a sword made for someone just her size was fastened to the rather pretty ribbon around her waist. A sword he knew. “That’s not yours,” he reached for it but her twist away was faster.

“We don’t have time for this!” She yelled at him now as she must have yelled at him many times before judging by her exasperation. “You have to go!”

“Go? Go where? I’ve just got here,” Gendry dropped on his knees fully, eye to eye with her as the tears started to roll down her cheeks. The wind was picking up spreading a chill over his exposed forearms. The sun was sinking behind a mass of grey clouds.

“You have to go,” she said between sobs, pointing behind him toward the open sea. And he turned to follow her little finger. “You’ll be too late.”

Those were the last words she said, nearly broken-defeated. He made to look back, to ask her again but the space before him was vacant. And on the next blink, he was awake.

xxx

From well before dawn, Gendry put hammer to stone. He finished three commissions by firelight before the sun came up. The evidence worn on his skin. Soot covered him fingertips to elbows like sheer black sleeves interrupted only by streams of perspiration. It marked his brow as well where he’d wiped the smoke and sweat from his eyes. A miserable moonlight attempt at a broadsword lay on the scrap heap but a perfect one rested on the table beside it. Now, he watched the darkening of a new burn on the back of his hand, startled pink to settled maroon, as he stretched his fingers against an impending cramp. The result of a tighter than usual grip on his tools that he wasn’t certain came from frustration or fear. 

He’d chased the dream for more than three moons. But he wasn’t even sure that it was a dream or that his mind had ever been the force behind it. Yet, every inch of it had felt more real than the last three years spent as Clovis Rivers. Surely, he owed Davos Seaworth more than a debt of gratitude for freeing him, for putting him on a boat, for the gold the old knight had hid in a bag of grain. But Gendry wondered if rowing back to King’s Landing had been the right choice. Now something he’d never felt was hanging over his head. No amount of pounding, no chirping steel could drive it away this day. The strain of trying ran in a fine vibration from the tensed muscles of his back down his arm and back up into his chest again and again and again. The feeling he always relied on to ground him, failing and instead opening a pit in his gut that quaked with every hit of the metal. But he kept swinging. Sparks popping off the glowing metal, the weapon become unrecognizable as he knowingly destroyed it. He kept swinging as a shadow spilled into the doorway just beyond his vision.

“Gendry Waters?”

He tried to work off the new layer of tension across his shoulders before it gave him away. He finished ruining the steel, three more blows, before he replied without looking up at the strong feminine voice. “Wrong stall.”

The visitor took several steps deeper into the cover of his shop before she tried again, unphased. “Gendry Baratheon then.”

The hammer slipped a fraction in his hand but Gendry quickly dug his fingers into the handle to keep it in his possession. And he did look up then at a tall girl, maybe a few years younger than himself. The shabbiness of her cloak hidden under a luxury of thick blonde hair that spilled over her shoulders. Her face clean but tired. She could have been a nearby tavern girl but Gendry couldn’t place her. He fixed her with a steady gaze across his dusty work bench and feigned half a smirk, breathing through his teeth. “Only Baratheon ‘round here is King Tommen.”

Her foot jumped like she might stomp it and a fist clenched at her side. But her voice was anything but affected. “We don’t have time for this.” Eyes that for all the world looked brown seemed to flash blue with fire.

“Clover?” Gendry gaped without reserve. His free hand searched for the mangled sword on the table, half hopeful he was still asleep. A little worried he’d been secluded so long, he’d lost his bloody mind.

“I’m the Three Eyed Raven.” Her eyes seemed to grow cold but she moved further into Gendry’s space, rounding the table.

Stumbling backward over his own feet, he raised both hands, more or less armed. “You a witch?”

“I’m not a witch.”

“ ‘Cause I’m done with witches.”

“I’m the Three Eyed Raven now. I had to find you,” the blonde who was and wasn’t Clover had backed Gendry into the corner of his stall. But made no more threatening moves.

His calves hit the low sitting cot. He wobbled without shame but kept what little ground he had left. “I don’t know ‘bout any fucking ravens. And I don’t want to hurt you. But if you’ve got leeches or-“

“Arya Stark needs your help.”

The panicky butterflies in his chest slammed to a stop and he felt suddenly sobered. But it took him a moment to say the words he’d avoided using together even in his head. The name he should never repeat for both their sakes. The truth that could consume what remained of Gendry Waters. “Arya Stark is dead.”

“She’s not. Not yet.”

He wanted to give in. Give in to this glimmer she offered. Reticence pulsed protectively in his veins along with an urge to run. In whatever direction she pointed. His mind flashed to the dream, Clover pointing out to sea time and again. Dead or alive, however, Arya’s secrets were his to keep. “She died at The Twins. Everyone says.”

“She made it to The Twins. But avoided the slaughter.” Clover’s words were clipped. Her impatience as clear as Gendry’s thinly veiled shock. “Listen to me. There is a boat leaving for Braavos in two days.”

“She’s dead. I’m not getting on a boat with you.” Quiet disbelief lurked in his voice in spite of his words.

“I can’t go with you. I’m not even really here.”

The ruined sword hit the hard packed floor several feet away with sounding force. The smithing hammer landed handle up at Gendry’s feet. His blackened finger coming up in the inches that separated them to point at Clover. She hadn’t even flinched. It made Gendry’s teeth grind as his muscles flexed involuntarily. There was a time when the words of House Baratheon were sung throughout King’s Landing and Gendry fleetingly felt he knew their meaning now. She spoke again before his fury found action.

“I can be your family.”

“-What?” the words came out breathless, a collapsing bellows. He was vaguely aware that his hand between them was shaking.

“It’s what she said.”

“I kn- . . .you can’t-“ Gendry finally gave in to the urge to fall. The cot catching him eventually, gracelessly. When he looked up at her it was with a white face, eyes drowned is questions. He only blinked as he studied her anew to no avail. “Who are you?”

She kneeled gently in front of him, took his hands from their strong hold on his knees into her own. The effect was instant. Gendry was pulled through a series of memories, his memories. Hazy at first, like the dreams had been but crisp and vibrant as the theme became clear. Arya. Arry. From their first meeting to their last. Harrenhal and the Brotherhood. Every moment of trust and friendship relived in a matter of seconds until he was driven away in ropes. But the vision didn’t end there.

Gendry saw snow for the first time. Miles and miles of it. He could feel the cold of it rush through him before the bone-chilling came in another form. Men, or some remnant of them, intent on killing him. But the terror flashed away. There was a fortress covered in grey dire wolf banners. The heat of a forge. And Arya. Everywhere. Older than he’d known her. Hardly taller, but more – it was in the way she moved, the way she fought, the way she looked at him. Smiling at him, teasing him, her lips on his, the touch of her skin on his and more. More than he could process. Visions he wouldn’t have dared to dream. All that made him feel alive and important for the first time in his life. Even when Arya was nowhere to be seen, when there was a dark haired infant with eyes like cold seas that grew into the Clover from his nightly reveries.

The vision faded more gradually than it began. Clover was sat on her heels waiting. Eyes rounded with hope. “Aye,” Gendry finally acquiesced. Cupping her cheeks to tilt her face, bestowing a kiss to her forehead before leaning back. “I’ll go.”

She simply nodded and stood silently. “Two days. The ship to Braavos.” She was already moving softly toward the front of the stall.

“Wait,” Gendry leapt from the shabby bed, less confused but with more questions. “Braavos? It’s big, yeah? How’m I meant to find to her?”

A low whistle from Clover’s lips brought a dog to the door. Grey and white, not a wolf by any means but he appeared both wild and loyal as he trotted in and sat at Gendry’s side. “You should prepare yourself. She’ll be injured.”

“Someone’s hurt her?” his jaw tensed as he inferred her meaning, eyes darting about the room for his forgotten hammer.

“They will.”

Gendry forwent the small hammer on the ground and hefted the war hammer from its perch on the wall. Then set his eyes on Clover. He hadn’t known why he refused to sell it until now. “Who?” But she only shook her head in ignorance. “Why Braavos?” he tried again.

That she did know. “Jaqen H’ghar.”

Gendry barely had time to think Ours is the Fury, his eyes closed oh so briefly on the thought, and this Clover had disappeared as well.

From there, everything was shockingly easy. Gendry sold his extra metal and most of his weapons, secured passage on the ship, and strapped the few things he deemed important to his back. There was no one to say goodbye to. No reason to look behind.

xxx

Aside from the gnawing doubt and the anxious anticipation that left him pacing the decks with a stomach full of knots, Dog right beside him, the voyage wasn’t half bad. It’s not like he had to row.

Braavos itself was a sight. A free city, they called it. Not an imposing keep surrounded by guards and slums, but a wide open port. Clear water canals as abundant as streets. Trade on every corner. People living their lives without the threat of crowns. Freedom flowing through the city like a tangible thing. But it wasn’t the open air markets or street players or foreign tongues that Gendry was focused on. His mind was set on one thing. The focus made paramount as soon as the ship’s gangplank was lowered and Dog bolted. Gendry chased him down alleys and stone steps, each turn of a brunette head making his breath catch. Dog’s urgency raising bile in his stomach.

His limbs grew cold as he paused atop a bridge. Dog already a street ahead. Blood pulsed heavy in his ears. And his heart, which may very well have been broken his ribs, stopped completely. Below him, at the water’s edge, there was a fight escalating. He knew before the wind and the scuffle swept the dark hair from her face but he was frozen in place anyway. Watching as Arya Stark was attacked. As she attacked right back, a girl of similar size and apparently skill. Gendry couldn’t remember how to breathe, even when Arya scrambled away. He didn’t recognize the sound of his own voice, graveled and desperate, roaring the light syllables of her name causing her head to swivel toward him, as her fair headed opponent drew a blade. In the moment before she clutched her hands to her middle, he was sure their eyes met.

Gendry only saw the first strike before he ran, the war hammer slamming against his back certain to leave bruises, as his feet slapped the cobblestones and his lungs burned more than when he breathed too deeply next the forge fires. He was just in time to see Arya’s head sink below the surface of the canal. Dog’s feral barking and snarling clearing a path. Gendry didn’t think. He just jumped. The water wasn’t deep compared to his height only inches existed between his head and breathable air, it was mercifully warm and quickly turning cloudy.

He reemerged with Arya in his arms. The cumbersomeness of her dripping clothes weighing more than she certainly did. She was skin and bone and little else. Stairs cut into the stone seawall had them back on land with little effort. Gendry knew he should set her down to assess her wounds, that he should find a safe place to take her or call for help but all he could think about was how still she was.

The last time he had held her, she was all fire and limbs lunging to kill a man three times her size, the marks left on his skin by her heels and elbows had been proof of just how alive she was – now, she was too still. The only evidence of her continued existence was the too hot, too red blood that pumped out of her veins and quickly coated his fingers.


	2. The Impossibility of Gendry Waters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We all know why we're here. Let's just get down to business.

She’s breathing. She’s still breathing. He can see it. The even rise and fall of her chest under the crisp linen sheet. And for now, it’s enough. Because Gendry’s stomach still turns when he closes his eyes and sees nothing but her blood. His knee bouncing unconsciously as he sits in the chair he’s positioned so he can see both Arya and the door at all times. The only thing that stops his hands shaking is the white-knuckle grip he has on a dagger. He can’t remember how he managed to steady himself enough to sew the largest wounds closed, only that he’d nearly knocked the housekeeper to the ground when she tried to help.

It’s been three days. He knows because that’s the number of times the same housekeeper has come in the too warm, too close room with water, food, fresh cloth for bandages, and firewood, carrying away yesterday’s uneaten meal. But they haven’t spoken, though she looks at him kindly enough for him to feel ashamed. Gendry can wrap his thoughts around little else. He should be thinking about their safety, what they’ll do when Arya wakes, if . . . if someone will still be after her. He’s tried to remember anything about Jaqen, but Gendry is fairly certainly he never even spoke to man, absolutely didn’t like it when Arya did, and their prison break from Harrenhal is as mysterious now as it was then. And he wasn’t physically there on the bridge assaulting Arya, even though Gendry knows in his bones he had a hand in the attack. Gendry feels just as helpless as he did three days ago, dripping wet from the canals. Dog barking his head off. People starting to take notice of him. Of the pale unmoving girl he held against his chest. The details still too fresh. And if he lets it, his mind conjures it up easily, perfectly with blinding detail. . . 

He could feel it. The panic spreading through him. Like a live thing rushing through his veins freezing him in place even as it set him on fire. He was stupid. He didn’t have a plan beyond getting on a boat and finding her. But he couldn’t form a solid thought beyond the ringing in his ears. Couldn’t see anything other than his own hands and the blurred outline of Dog. He had no idea who was then taking notice of them. They needed somewhere safe in a city he knows nothing about. They needed clean water, fire, bandages for . . . They needed to both be breathing. And he hadn’t taken a breath since her first one out of the water which felt like an eternity ago. Or maybe she had and he just couldn’t feel it over his own tremors.

He thought of Arya’s list. The names he’d like to add to it. A girl without a name that he’ll add anyway. But he also remembered reciting it calmed her at night, gave her something to focus on. But that’s her list. So instead he counted.

One . . . he focused first on his own stalled breathing. In.

Two . . .out.

Three . . . he shivered as he took in just how soaked through they both were. Unable to distinguish between water and blood. Their clothes turned dark and the puddles on the ground tinted red. Growing redder. Squishing and dripping. Even stood still.

The ebb of his own blood slowed. Four. He could see Dog clearly finally. Keeping the onlookers from getting too near with a vicious sounding growl. That actually reminded him of Arya. Of the fierce determined girl she’d always been. That she clearly still was – getting into knife fights on the streets of Braavos. All alone. Five.

His eyes scanned what looked like the outskirts of a marketplace. There must be inns or taverns. He’d have taken a room anywhere. A forge. A kitchen table. Everything in him said they needed to get out of sight. He had plenty of coin to pay and the hammer still slung across his shoulders if silence couldn’t be bought. They’d go to the left. It looked less congested and he thought he could see tavern signs hung down the curving alleyway. Dog would clear a path. Just as soon as she breathed again.

“Come on, Arry,” he whispered and waited.

And then her eyes fluttered like they wanted to open. Her ribcage expanded against his hand. And an airy “Gendry,” fell from her lips before she went completely still again. It was more than he could have asked for. More than enough to make his heart catch in a good way that time. She knew he was there.

“Alright. I got you.” Gendry pulled Arya further into him. He made it two steps, boots sloshing, leaving ponds behind instead of footprints. It was Dog’s sudden quiet that took his eyes from his current path to an arrestingly familiar figure stood closer than he would have liked, arms folded squarely across his middle, hands hidden in his decadent sleeves.

“Well, this is certainly a surprise.”

But he doesn’t look surprised. From what Gendry had heard of Lord Varys in King’s Landing, he made it his business to never be surprised. No, Gendry carried all the shock in this encounter as Lord Varys stood eerily calm and like he knew exactly who Gendry was.

“You’d better come with me,” Varys turned expecting Gendry to just follow but rightly sensed it wouldn’t be that simply accomplished. He turned to step even closer and Gendry knew his grip on Arya was too tight even if she couldn’t complain. Varys didn’t change his expression or even his tone. He’s the most serenely matter of fact man Gendry had ever met. “I didn’t help Ned Stark get you out of King’s Landing so you could get yourself killed in the slums of Braavos. Come with me. You’ll be safe. She’ll be safe.”

He knew who Gendry was. He knew who they both were. Dog was sitting patiently at Lord Varys’s side. Lord Varys! The Master of Whisperers. What choice did he have?

So here he’s sat. Still trying to gain his bearings. In Lord Varys’s secret Braavosi safe house. The small spare room more plush and elegant than anything Gendry has ever seen and felt. His unfamiliarity with rich surroundings putting him as much on edge as the multitude of question marks still plaguing their situation. The hilt of a fine dagger cutting into his palm just enough to keep him alert. If Arya could just wake up, they could figure things out. Together.

“I thought you both long dead, you know.”

Gendry nearly stabbed his own leg as the lord of the house made his presence softly known. And his leg would have deserved it. The Spider was more than halfway in the room, standing on the opposite side of Arya’s bed, less lavishly dressed than he was in the street. For all the power he was said to wield, Gendry didn’t feel threatened in his presence at all. Maybe it was his seeming passivity. Maybe it was what he said about Arya’s father. Or the fact Dog was still completely relaxed beside him, head laid on his paws. Surely, if Lord Varys wanted his house guests dead or imprisoned, he and Arya wouldn’t still be there. Varys hadn’t done anything other than give them quarter. In fact, this was the first time he’d approached Gendry since he brought them to the house.

“I don’t suppose you’d tell me how the last Baratheon bastard came to be in Essos with Ned Stark’s youngest daughter?” It was genuine intrigue, gently asked. Varys kept his gaze on Arya’s sleeping form.

A stuttered, oversized sigh escaped Gendry’s mouth, almost like a laugh. His jaw shook at its sudden use. “We weren’t either of those things when we met. Not really.”

He could feel Varys study him a little more at that. But Gendry was turning the blade in his hand over and over to feel the weight of it, something that wouldn’t vanish from his hands. He understood, after his brief stay at Dragonstone, that he bore Baratheon features, unmistakable to those who knew. He didn’t think that’s what Varys was seeing in him just then.

“You’ve been . . . companions all this time?”

Gendry did look up to meet Varys’s eye at his careful choice of words. Dark and curious and almost kind. “Not all the time,” Gendry offered remorsefully enough that Varys couldn’t miss his meaning. But the older man continued to watch him thoughtfully, forming his estimation of Gendry Baratheon no doubt.

“I have an engagement. Elsewhere. You may stay as long as you require. I doubt we’ll meet again so I hope you’ll allow me to offer some advice. Don’t return to The Seven Kingdoms. It’s not kind to wolves or stags. And I believe you’ve both suffered a great deal too much already.” Lord Varys started toward the open door. Gendry found himself standing, at a loss how else he might show his gratitude.

Varys was looking at him almost warmly now. “You came here for her.” It wasn’t a question but something else Varys was adding to the tally sheet. “Gendry Waters, we are not the sum of our father’s sins.”

The knowing words fell heavily on Gendry’s ears keeping him from replying, from providing the simple thank you that was on the tip of his tongue. Lord Varys was already gone.

XXX

Things happened quickly and much, much too slowly after Lord Varys departed. Arya was struck with fever before the sun went down. No amount of cold compresses or open windows made any difference. Gendry doused the fire only to see Arya drenched in sweat. And with the fever came nightmares. It started with only her slightly shifting limbs which Gendry thought were due probably to overheated discomfort, after his elation at her having moved at all wore off. But in short course, she began to mumble, words he could not make out at first. Then, “No”, “Robb”, “Father” in various arrangement. Sometimes on sobs that had Gendry kneeling beside the bed. Her lonely torture seemed to go on endlessly. Dog’s whimpering and pacing only made Gendry more restless until he selfishly pushed the creature out of the room, closing the door in his sad furry face.

Arya had been all spit and fire when they were younger. More like the forge he loved than any girls he’d met. She ran on rage, determined for vengeance. And while her age and stature spoke to others of vulnerability, he’d never truly seen her that way even in the moments he’d ached to protect her. So, this, her crying and sick unable to shield herself, to fight back, gutted Gendry in ways he didn’t expect.

The night grew unbearably long as kneeling next to her became something more like doubled-over. Adrenaline mixing with nerves and exhaustion. He shook along with her. Had to bite his lip to steady himself before he could attempt to shush and soothe her. Hesitating didn’t cross his mind when her arms moved more violently and he stood to gently circle her wrists and press them to the mattress. A red circle bloomed through one of her bandages. And as she stilled, Gendry sat at her hip.

“Oh Arry,” his release of her arms left his hand free to travel to her cheek, feeling more of the heat radiating off her than her actual skin. Before his thumb could make a full delicate sweep of her cheekbone, his hand was smacked away. He couldn’t have moved if he wanted to as Arya’s eyes flew open and she practically lunged at him. In an instant, she had him by the neck, her nails digging in. She stared him through, equal parts fear and anger in her bloodshot orbs. Even as her other hand circled his throat, Gendry knew no amount of discomfort could induce him to make a move against her.

And he was nothing but sorrow and confusion as she hissed at him, her voice still thick with sleep and tears, “You’re not you! You can’t be you!”

Her fingers raked around the back of his neck, almost clawing before scrapping along his jaw but he could draw a clear breath. Her strength waning. Her words even slurring a bit. “They can’t have you.”

Gendry finally brought his arms up, they circled easily around her back as she began to slump, completely spent. “It’s me, Arry. I swear, it’s me.”

Then, she was limp in his hold. Them both soaked through. Gendry lowered her back to the pillow thinking her fit left her to plain pass out, until she spoke one more time from the edge of slumber. “I never let them take you.”

He dragged his hand slowly over his open mouth in an attempt to muffle his own panting breaths before he smoothed the damp hair away from her face and neck. He never thought about his own wounds as he changed the blood-soaked cloth at her ribs even though he felt her fingers with every swallow. And he never wondered why he hadn’t so much as flinched when she grabbed him or why he hadn’t stolen out the door for a moment of recovery. Beyond the realization that he had absolutely no fucking idea the horrors Arya’s faced since they parted, he was more afraid to leave her than to find out, because something in her touch, even in violence, grounded him. Reminded him what Clover had shown him. He couldn’t walk away even a little.

XXX

At the first awareness of waking, Arya’s limbs grew heavy but she let them sink further into the featherbed beneath her, in denial. Sure that the sun wasn’t up and unwilling to open her eyes just yet. Cocooned in furs, the smell of the died out fire still on the air, the weight of Nymeria at her feet, and nowhere else she’d rather be. She wouldn’t have long before her Septa would appear to drag her through a day of dresses and lady lessons while she daydreamed about shooting arrows with the boys. Maybe she could melt herself far enough into the bed that no would find her until midday. One good roll over . . .

Arya’s side erupted in heat and pain. Searing, stomach churning pain that steals her breath. A thin sheet slid down her body as she tried to sit up without whimpering revealing the bandaging wrapped around her middle beneath her still bound chest. She was practically mummified. Barely upright, Arya couldn’t get a good look beyond bloodied smudges. It fit with her memory of the attack. Running from The Waif, fighting in the streets before she pulled out a blade. It was after that her mind became fuzzy. Because what she thought happened couldn’t have. Locking eyes with his on the bridge, his voice close, his touch in the night. It had to be a trick. A lesson. Jaqen’s variety of punishment.

Gendry couldn’t possibly be sleeping at the foot of the bed. His sturdy frame slumped against the foot-board. One leg running up the bed alongside her own body. His other foot on the floor, though hers could never reach from the luxuriant height of the mattress. The scowl she remembered, the usual harshness of his brow couldn’t penetrate the softness of sleep. The realness of him was too much. Driven deeper into Arya’s pounding heart by the heat of his hand where it rested on her bare ankle. His fingers stretching up her shin, tanned and work-hardened against her still porcelain pale Northern skin. And so warm. Like he’d always been. Either from his Southern blood or his forge. To her, it had always clung to him even on their coldest nights.

As masterful as her tutor was, could he mimic that? Could he steal memories Arya never gave him? Why would he keep her alive now? She’d proven herself a disappointment and a disobedient liability.

Arya could feel the quickening of her breathing, the coldness creeping into her fingers as they scratched linen in fruitless search of a weapon. She’d no idea where she was. Or how long she’d been there. Who was truly sat across from her. In an instant she was gulping down air with little benefit. Her head filled with dizziness. Like Jon spinning her round and round in the practice yard, her feet off the ground, the wind it created clouding her ears, his face a blur of smiling teeth and dark hair in front of her. But nothing to really focus her vision on. Nothing solid.

When the room in front of her started to actually go dark, she panicked more. Unwillingly remembering the months she spent wandering the alleyways blind. Even though she learned to thrive in the darkness, to fight, it’s too much. Darkness of her mind so much worse than being actually sightless. She had just wanted to stop an innocent woman from being killed and go home. But she’d given that away, hadn’t she? Along with everything else. A girl wasn’t supposed to have a home or memories or fear. A girl was just a weapon. All she had left to do was accept it. Accept that she was someone else’s to wield.

No agenda. No attachments. No hope.

Except. Arya’s lungs were fighting less. Her eyes were picking up the shape of the room. The breeze from the open shutters. The scent of sea and flowers it carried. The low timber of a voice that somehow rumbled completely through her. And the undeniable warmth of a thumb slowly circling the inside of her ankle, going over and over the bone, steady, and genuine.

Just watching each smooth rotation eased the unknowns in Arya’s stomach. Her gaze ran up the forearm that she knew so well – that she had watched swing a hammer, that she had felt flex around her once. Red rivers ran jagged all across his neck, some over delicate oblong bruises, some deep enough they must have bled. The evidence may have still been on his shirt. That was down to her. She knew without question. She’d hurt him and he hadn’t stopped her.

But when she finally looked at his face, there was no turbulence, no anger in the well-known blue eyes. There was concern punctuated by the moving of his dry lips.

“-alright. You’re safe. It’s just me. You’re alright.”

Arya knew it wasn’t the first time he’d said that. That she’d missed it in her haze. The worry didn’t fade from him now though even as she looked at him with some kind of awareness. Maybe he could see it. That she wasn’t the same anymore.

“Arya?”

She doesn’t even blink at her own name though the sound of it, especially in his voice, is enough to make her weep. If it’s real. She may have gotten her body under control but her mind is still parrying. Her only current defense. Because he’s never called her that. She’d have to play his game. “That’s a bit bold.”

His hand tensed on her calf for only a second before the welcome heat disappeared. Barely any lingering behind. But he took what seemed a relieved breath. His eyes crinkled even if his mouth didn’t follow suit. “Sorry, m’lady.” It was soft, reverent. Like he hadn’t said the word in years.

It made her want to break. The impossibility. The truth of it. “Gendry?”

He looked partly hurt, partly confused. The familiarity of that shocked her. She was too young to see it the first time. “Who else would I be?”

She must have recoiled at his answer because his hands raised a bit in surrender. “Easy, yeah. You already reopened one of your-” he hesitated and then smiled, just a little, to cover. “I’ll have to stitch you up again.”

“You?”

“I’m a smith.” He said it plainly like it was an answer whole but she still looked at him expectantly. “I’ve been cutting myself on blades as long as I’ve been forging ‘em. I’m probably better with needle and thread than you, Lady-”

“How did you- “ the disuse of her throat after the still unknown length of time made itself apparent as her words caught and she coughed. Her training taught her to take interrogation slowly. One question for one answer. But that clashed terribly with her natural thirst for knowledge. She needed all the answers now.

He waited. Made sure her eyes were properly fixed on him again. “Someone told me you needed me. So I came.”

Then he got up to pour her a cup of water. He wasn’t trying to hide anything. He never did. If anything, he’d always been too honest. And he knew. He knew that she was studying him. It hadn’t affected his demeanor. He seemed to realize she needed it and simply accepted it.

It wasn’t a matter of chance. Yet, it was completely improbable. That Gendry Waters was here. Framed in the morning light by the window. And it was very, very dangerous. For both of them.

“Gendry,” his name was too sweet without the question mark and made her next statement all the more urgent. “You have to leave.”

His response was cut off by a sharp, angry bark from beyond the door and desperate scratching against the wood. Then, the cup in his hand clattered to the floorboards, water splashed in all directions as his body was shoved forward and he landed hard on his knees as a blade appeared at his throat. The Waif’s drawn face coming up over his shoulder. Her beady eyes more full of malice than usual.

“I was right, Lady Stark. You’ll never be one of us.” The Waif pressed her knife hard enough to draw blood from Gendry’s neck. “Now you both pay The Many Faced God.”

Arya sprang from the bed without a plan. She clutched her side as the force of hitting the floor jolted through her and could already feel fresh blood on her fingers. Her eyes darted around the room. She was still weaponless. An impressive war hammer sat in the corner behind her. His, undoubtedly. But she’d never be able to swing it in her state. She’d seen Gendry fight. His size gave him the upper hand but if he moved even an inch, he’d be finishing The Waif’s job for her.

“That’s not how it works,” Arya needed time. To think. To catch the other girl off guard. “You get me in place of Lady Crane. Not both of us.”

“If you knew the rules, you should have followed them.” She taunted Arya and pushed Gendry further down on his haunches. They could all hear the scrape of her knife against his stubbled throat. “Your actress friend is already dead.”

That shouldn’t have surprised Arya but it did a bit. And it hurt more than she expected. She knew what could hurt her worse. She only had one way to get Gendry free. “Then you just need me. I’ll go with you. He stays.”

“Arya, don’t!” The words were horse, strangled. But they drew her attention to him. Gendry made sure Arya had his eyes before they moved down and his head tipped only as much as he was able. He was gesturing to the floor. All Arya saw there was his oversized boots. When she met his eyes again, he gave a determined albeit stupid nod that had the blade further digging into his flesh.

A coughing fit brought Arya to the ground. The Waif was practically laughing at the both of them. Their apparent feebleness. Her impending victory. “You’re so stupid,” she crowed.

Her mouth didn’t get the chance to close before a perfectly weighted, fine hilted dagger sunk into her throat. Stuck in permanent shock. Her arm went slack and she fell to the ground as soon as Gendry launched himself away. Arya was already beside him as he bent over their attacker to see the blood trickle more from her mouth than her neck. But Arya quickly retrieved the dagger, poised to strike her again. Gendry stayed her arm.

She blinked at him a moment. Rapidly shifting emotions, adrenaline, the scent of blood all disorienting her. She held the weapon out to him instead, handle first.

“Keep it,” he hadn’t even pushed himself off the ground when Arya swayed. He didn’t have far to go to catch her weight and she didn’t fight it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wanna read more? Put your feels in the comments. Drop a hello. I only bite if provoked. xo

**Author's Note:**

> Wanna read more? Put your feels in the comments. Drop a hello. I only bite if provoked. xo


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